Scott Draper

I walked out of my (unmade) bedroom one morning feeling guilty. Part of being a "Draper" was ensuring your room was tidy before you embarked on the day ahead. As the distance between me and the bedroom increased, two opposing voices inside my head started a conversation - one insisting, "I need to go back into the room and make the bed", and the other saying, "do it later". The insistent voice won over. I marched back in to my bedroom and made the bed - to perfection. This was the start of a nine-month nightmare in my 19th year of life.

During this tumultuous time I was trying to become a professional tennis player, having won the Wimbledon Boys' doubles title a year earlier. Many successful sports players demonstrate obsessional traits – anyone who has ever watched Rafael Nadal on the court would have seen his various on-court routines.

One way to help manage OCD behaviour is through effectively demonstrating greater self-compassion, says Scott Draper. Photo: All Sport

I had always been a perfectionist; wanting to keep things neat and tidy, needing to achieve excellence in most things I did (like most professional athletes) and was generally not great at patting myself on the back. I had a fear of vomiting (which made me somewhat obsessive about germs) and was also religious through these formative years. I believed that God could and would punish me for any wrongdoing.

The insistent voice that won over that day was a combination of my personality and belief that if I didn't do the right thing, God would punish me with something I feared - vomiting.

The obsessiveness grew, from the perfectly made bed, to fastidiously straightening, rearranging, checking, cleaning, wiping, scrubbing and eventually touching every object that my unrelenting mind felt compelled to right.

The touching became one of the most debilitating elements of this disorder. It was almost impossible for me to ever get things right in my mind, so when it was as close to perfect as I could get it, I thought touching it would make me feel better. Subsequently, I wouldn't be happy with the way in which I touched it, so I would touch it again and again. I even had a complex number routine I had to adhere to.

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It would take me three hours to get to bed most nights, as my obsessiveness was at its worst before the day came to a close. I needed to end the day perfectly so that I could sleep with a clean conscience.

Back at home, I was depressed. The force of needing to go through these routines was overwhelming. I decided to make a date where I would stop this obsessiveness altogether. I was driving to play a tennis tournament in NSW and the commitment was that once my front tires left the driveway of mum and dad's house I would never do it again.

Some people say it required tremendous discipline for me to do that – but I believe a big part of being able to stop was due to me fearing my obsessiveness more than God and what he could do to me. Twenty-one years later, I'm still in remission for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I didn't know what it was called at the time and no one knew I had it – in public, I counted in my head as I touched or held things.

I had a profound experience filming an episode of SBS's Insight programrecently. It is the first time I've been around other people that have suffered or continue to suffer with OCD.

Insight discussed what the difference is between OCD and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), as well as treatment options. One of the compelling points raised, in terms of a point of difference between OCD and OCPD, was "intrusive" thoughts. This struck a chord with me. I remember those intrusive thoughts vividly – the sound, feeling and smell of vomiting to the point of dry retching. Removing those thoughts from my mind was extremely difficult.

In the past 21 years I have had many thoughts that have infiltrated my mind for protracted periods of time, but I've managed to extricate them each and every time. I've realised the multitude of ways that I calm my mind (or try to distract it), by certain thoughts or motions.

The obsessiveness grew, from the perfectly made bed, to fastidiously straightening, re-arranging, checking, cleaning, wiping, scrubbing and eventually touching.

Scott Draper

The essence of OCD will always be with me; I have just learnt how to manage the behaviours. I firmly believe that one way to help manage OCD behaviour is through effectively demonstrating greater self-compassion.

Working on being comfortable in your own skin is a great start to happiness. If I were to treat people like I have treated myself at times, I wouldn't be very popular. Happiness is a powerful drug. It can heal any wound and fill any void.

Scott Draper is a former professional tennis player and a guest on Tuesday's episode of Insight, which explores obsession (8.30pm on SBS ONE).